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OSU researcher lands high-stakes food safety grant on onions

Onions in greenhouse.jpg

Joy Waite-Cusic, an assistant professor at Oregon State University, will study onions and contaminated water in a high-stakes project for Oregon onion growers.
(Joy Waite-Cusic/Oregon State University)

It might not sound sexy but this study could make a big difference in Oregon. Onions are among the state's top 10 crops with an annual production of 1.3 billion pounds and $115 million in sales.

Farmers fear their future could be threatened by a Food and Drug Administration proposal clamping down on microbes in irrigation water. Oregon onion growers, located mainly in Malheur County, rely on surface water for irrigation. Out in the open, it gets contaminated. Growers say harmful organisms are killed when the onions are cured, partly by exposure to ultra violet rays. The FDA isn't so sure.

That's where Joy Waite-Cusic comes in. A 33-year-old assistant professor at OSU, she just landed a $68,000 grant from the Center for Produce Safety at the University of California at Davis. She plans to use the money to study the effect of contaminated irrigation water on onions. Specifically, the goal is to find out whether Salmonella and E. coli survive the curing process. If they don't, as the growers contend, the industry could snag a water-quality waiver from the FDA.

"This is very important," said Bruce Pokarney, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. "If growers are going to have to make a case as to why they should be exempt there should be research to document that."

Waite-Cusic, who grew up in Florence near her grandparents' dairy farm, is the only Oregon researcher to snag a grant this year from the Center for Produce Safety, which divvied up $3 million among 16 projects.

"I'm thrilled," Waite-Cusic said. "I was at the right place at the right time."

She bumped into the idea while on conference calls with farmers and the Oregon Department of Agriculture. The ODA solicited comments for the FDA on the proposed produce rule. The agency has given the public until Nov. 15 to comment on the proposal, which will set standards for irrigation water and require testing.

If that rule, as written now, went into effect, it could devastate Oregon onion growers, said Kay Riley, general manager of Snake River Produce in Nyssa.

"That's the whole gist of the thing," Riley said, "It potentially puts us out of business."

Waite-Cusic plans to grow onions from seed in an OSU greenhouse and irrigate them with water contaminated with Salmonella and generic E. coli. She'll then cure the onions, the way Oregon growers do by exposing them to ultra violet rays, and test for microbes. The FDA is especially concerned about Salmonella, which is hardier than E. coli, she said. Salmonella sicken an estimated 42,000 people every year in the United States and kill 400, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But Oregon's onion growers point out that they've never had an outbreak associated with their crop. And regular tests of bulbs have failed to find pathogens, Riley said.

"We've been doing water sampling and bulb testing and we've never had a positive for E. coli O157:H7 or Salmonella," Riley said.